Grassley demands answers on FBI officials' texts about Trump

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley demanded answers Thursday about when top Department of Justice officials became aware of anti-Donald Trump text messages sent in 2015 and 2016 by top FBI officials, including one senior agent involved in the investigation of any Trump campaign connections to Russia.

"The limited release of 375 text messages between Mr. Peter Strzok and Ms. Lisa Page indicate a highly politicized FBI environment during both the Clinton and Russia investigations," Grassley wrote in a letter to deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to lead a criminal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

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Republicans have zoomed in on one August 2016 exchange in which Strzok mentions a conversation in "Andy's office," which Republicans presume means FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk," Sztrok wrote to Page. "It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40…"

Grassley asked Rosenstein to provide any additional materials that might shed light on the meaning of that message. In recent public testimony, DOJ officials, including Rosenstein, have declined to divulge more context or details about the significance of the texts, deferring to an ongoing inspector general investigation of the FBI's handling of a 2016 probe of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

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Grassley also pointed to a second text message in which Page says, "we text on that phone when we talk about hillary because it can’t be traced, you were just venting bc you feel bad that you’re gone so much but it can’t be helped right now." Grassley asked for details about the phone Page referenced.

Republicans on the House judiciary committee have raised alarms about the text messages, though Democrats have downplayed them as acceptable expressions of political viewpoints. They say there's no evidence so far that Strzok or Page acted on their politics to influence investigations related to Clinton or Trump. Republicans, though, have posited that Strzok's central role in both probes could taint the investigations, particularly if he had any interaction with a disputed dossier on Trump connections to Russia.